Book 4
6.39
Acilius fled from the city secretly. His hiding-place was disclosed by a slave to the soldiers, but he prevailed upon them, by the hope of a larger reward, to send some of their number to his wife with a private token that he gave them. When they came she gave them all of her jewellery, saying that she gave it in return for what they had promised, although she. did not know whether they would keep their agreement. But her fidelity to her husband was not disappointed, for the soldiers hired a ship for Acilius and conducted him to Sicily. The wife of Lentulus asked that she might accompany him in his flight and kept watch upon his movements for that purpose, but he was not willing that she should share his danger, and fled secretly to Sicily. Being appointed praetor there by Pompeius he sent word to her that he was saved and elevated to office. When she learned in what part of the earth her husband was she escaped with two slaves from her mother, who was keeping watch over her. With these she travelled in the guise of a slave, with great hardship and the meanest fare, until she was able to make the passage from Rhegium to Messana about nightfall. She learned without difficulty where the praetor’s tent was, and there she found Lentulus, not in the attitude of a praetor, but on a low pallet with unkempt hair and wretched food, mourning for his wife.
